Film Courage: What is on-the-nose dialogue?
Writer/Instructor and Script Consultant Shannan E. Johnson (The Professional Pen): On-the-nose
dialogue usually means your characters are saying everything that they're thinking there
is no nuance there is no subtext this can possibly be because like for me I'm a very forward person
when I speak so now all of my characters are being very forward but most people are not
like that most people don't say what they mean or mean what they say most people don't speak
very directly most people shut down instead of telling you what their feelings are most people
don't know how to tell you what their feelings are in the first place so if you've got two characters
in a scene and both of them can communicate effectively then your screen plays over because
now they're not causing any problems for each other the other part of that is and I want to be
careful when I say this there's a little bit of poetry to writing dialogue there are puns and
like a lot of the greatest dialogue that we that we think about are things that I probably would
not have said that in real life what I mean so there is a little bit of that that happens
and not everybody's good at that and that's fine I'm not necessarily all that great at it unless
I'm writing like oh southern women or men then I can give them all the Poetry there is but that's
because I go around I grew up around those people so I know the kind of poetry that they speak
but generally speaking it usually just means that on-the-nose literally means like you can't miss
it it's there and you want some of that dialogue to be far more nuanced so that you can play with
everything else in the scene the words don't have to tell us everything so it's a little bit of
show don't tell the words don't have to tell us any everything how can we find out other things
or how can you say this to me without saying it to me so there's like this I'm going to call it
a meme I don't think that's what it is but they say tell me you're an 80’s baby without telling
you're an 80’s baby oh well one of my first concerts was The Temptations which probably
would make me like a 70’s baby but I went I went with my parents so but that would be my way of
saying that instead of just walking in and saying I am an 80s baby I'd go well my first concert was
Prince and then people will probably go okay you were probably born in the whatever time so
the same thing is true with your dialogue how can let's go back to our young lady who's cursing out
her mother how can she show her mother that she's upset with her without saying I'm upset with you
that's how you're going to write dialogue that's not on-the-nose that's how you're going to get the
subtext that's how you're going to get the nuance so for example one of the examples I love and
hopefully I can remember the name of this film it's about Cowboys and it's on Netflix but the
Father the Son acts the father why don't you love me and instead of the father saying I love you
and here are all the reasons why he tells a story about naming him and it's because I gave you your
name that we understand he loves him he never says I love you he never says no son you got to believe
it I love you instead he tells this beautiful story about how he chose his name that's subtext
that's Nuance that's not being on-the-nose the on-the-nose respond would be I love you
is there a way to avoid on-the-nose writing if you're good at it if you're good at dialogue yeah
if you understand nuance and subtext yeah but I think generally speaking when you're starting out
most people watch TV and watch films and what they take from it is just the dialogue and they're
thinking it's more like a play where it's just you go I go you go I go you go I go and they're
not necessarily considering how those words are pushing the story forward or how those words
can make the reader feel as they're taking it in because I always say the read is King someone's
got to read it before it gets produced they're not thinking about the pacing of it or how it
could be dragging the story because they're in this conversation for so long and I think that's
something you have to learn over time some people might like anything else simply just be gifted at
whether they know that they're gifted at it or not some people are just good at dialogue
but I think generally speaking we've all written something on-the-nose before with that being said
sometimes being on-the-nose is okay every single line of dialogue is not going to have subtext or
no one's going to know what we're talking about like at some point you got to say it out loud
especially if you're writing something that's like science fiction or something that's already pretty
difficult for us to understand like something political etcetera at some at some point someone's
just got to keep it simple and make it very plain about what's going on or we're all going to be
lost so sometimes on the on-the-nose dialogue is okay and you won't get that note about it
you might get a note that says I need somebody to just make it plain I need someone to just say it
because we're all kind of lost in the thoughts of what's going on here there can be dialogue that's
too poetic like it's so poetic that we aren't really having a conversation anymore and we aren't
really pushing the story forward anymore we're just saying nice flowery things so I think no
matter what unless again you've just got a natural Knack at it and some people do that it takes a
little while to figure out dialogue especially because you're writing for so many characters and
not all of those characters are going to sound the same talk the same use the same cadence in their
speaking etcetera and so I think it's a skill set that it takes a little while to kind of figure out
how does a writer balance dialogue and action in a scene I think it depends on the scene
first of all each scene is pushing your story forward so that means each scene has a goal
like a little mini goal of the larger goal if you don't know what that is you can get lost
in the sauce of your dialogue and your action if you're writing features features are pushed more
by action than dialogue that doesn't mean that I need to literally see more lines of action but
it may mean that there are more opportunities to remove dialogue because action can tell me
what it is that they could have said so like I said before how can you show me that you're
angry without telling me that you're angry so instead of cursing mom out I'm going to slam
the door and walk out so now you got a line of action instead of dialogue I don't think
that there's a particular balance that has to be made it just depends on what's happening
for the scene I literally just gave a note the other day because we were reading we did a table
reads we were reading the script out loud and the action was actually distracting because it wasn't
necessary what we needed to focus on were these people talking because once it's getting shot
the director is going to give them blocking so they're going to be moving around they're going to
do stuff so it's not or they won't because we're just focused on their conversation it depends on
what the shot is and what they decide it's going to be but sometimes the only action that you need
is the scene description at the top and you can just let the people go that happens a lot more
in Television because television these actors are together all the time they've got a chemistry the
director is going to come in and give them the blocking and so a lot of the times you don't see
a lot of action in television episodes you'll see it when it's necessary as in like we need her to
pick up that cup therefore the action tells her to pick up the cup but other than that you might
not be you might not have as much action as you would in the future because they're moving in a
different rhythm in this TV series so you don't have to tell them what they need to be doing
all the time so you just need to figure out again what am I writing what is the format of what I'm
writing what's the genre of what I'm writing in a horror there might be more action because the
action is also giving me all of the feels what I mean it's giving me all the jumps and the scares
and the blah blah blah and obviously in an action film there's going to be more action because you
got to write out those action scenes etcetera whereas in a romantic comedy maybe it won't
have as much action or or in a comedy maybe it won't have as much action depending upon what
the comedy is so just kind of figure out what's necessary for you with the table read did you do
it again and just cut out the action no because we do three writers and we do it in two hours so
really the point is for the writer to hear it out loud and make notes for themselves on what they
may want to change when they go back for their revision so it's kind of like a part of their
revisions process so we talked about earlier first draft second drafts etcetera something
else you can do is listen to it out loud and I would suggest doing a table read versus using any
of the technology that has it played back for you because then you don't get the Rhythm so if it's a
a computer voice that's what I'm going to AI then the the Cadence is not the same so now you're not
hearing it how you intended it and then also a lot of AI may not know what to read and what not
to read on the page and screenplays have all kind of stuff on the page and so now again it's messing
up the Rhythm because it's reading parentheticals and it's reading all kinds of stuff but in a table
read I have the actors read the action and the die dialogue and the scene headings because as
the writer you need to hear okay they're in the mall and they're walking and they're having this
conversation does this work is the Rhythm working for me is the amount of action and
so this particular script that we were reading was a decently well put together screenplay but
it was just every now and again I could feel the writer inserting himself a few times to give me
a little action it's like yeah I don't need that because now that's dragging the read and you pull
that out and I just want to be listening to these people talking that's it because it's again was TV
so it's like we're going to get out of here and get into the next scene so it's not about having
four or five pages I would never suggest anybody have four or five pages of only dialogue there's
got to be some action in there because it's on the screen it's pushed by action but generally
speaking sometimes it's just hey we're in the mall and we're walking and we listen to them walk and
talk and we don't need to have any other action unless they're stopping at a store picking up a
bagel whatever it is they're doing what I mean this is Al Pacino in a courtroom scene maybe
and even then it's going to be interrupted with juror number one looks to the side it's going to
be interrupted by something even if it's not Al Pacino's action it's the judge leans back
you're going to get something else to just kind of disrupt that flow of all of the dialogue and
I think it's great too when you talked about an AI voice versus a human two if you see an actor
possibly struggling with something that's going to tell you too because that made the audience
will struggle with it yep exactly or or that the reader will struggle with it or that the
actual actor will struggle with it and you'll realize that even though where wherever it is
that you're from or with your friends you guys speak this way and so for you exactly what that
means and you're able to read it and then you get someone else come in and they have no idea
what the context of this is and they're flubbing over it you don't want actors to flub you want
them to just be able to read and go and so you can take all of those notes for yourself
and go okay I need to check on that line okay that line has it's a compound complex sentence
and it's and it's not working maybe I need to make it a little more simple what I mean
get to make those kind of notes for yourself so it's great to to hear your words out loud.